Saturday, March 24, 2012

Gun Games (Review and Giveaway)

by Faye Kellerman, narrated by Mitchell Greenberg, 12 hrs., Harper Audio January 2012

...not the best story in this series

This is primarily the story of Gabriel Whitman, a 15 year old who the Decker’s have taken into their home as a stepchild.  He is a prodigy and a budding concert pianist.  His love interest Yasmine, is an immature 14 year old from a Persian Jewish family.  At least half of the story is devoted to their adolescent love affair.  In a separate story line Decker, at the behest of a distraught mother, is investigating a suicide of a teenager in an exclusive private school.  Decker finds that the gun used in the suicide is stolen and the investigation then focuses on the involvement of a clique of school bullies.   In a turn of events possible only in crime novels Gabriel and Yasmine cross paths with the school bullies targeted in Decker’s investigation.  At that point in the story (about 80% into it) the action picks up considerably.   
This is subtitled a PeterDecker/Rina Lazarus novel, but there is almost no Rina and not much Peter in this story.  Inordinate amounts of time are given to the adolescent lovers.  I found this story line very weak.  Gabriel a 15 year old has the voice of a much older guy.  Yasmine is one of the whineiest annoying characters that I have come across.  When she is not complaining, she is crying!  The scenes describing this love affair were interminably long and insipid. The suicide investigation that culminates in the arrests of the school bullies is well done and interesting. 
This series has been a reliable mid tier crime drama.   There have been at least twenty books the series and while I haven’t read many of the later ones  I detect a sharp drop-off in quality from the earlier books.  I always enjoyed learning aspects of Judaism from Rina’s character while reading a decent story; that aspect is gone from this book.   
I listened to the audio edition of this book.  Mitchell Greenberg was the narrator.  It is difficult to judge his performance since I found the two main characters so annoying.  Had I been reading this story, I would have been flying by large parts of it; since I was listening I had to slog through the audio performance in real time which did not add to my enjoyment. 
If you are interested I am offering my copy of the audio edition of this story as a giveaway.  Follow the rules to the right of this box.  Giveaway ends Saturday March 31. 

I listened to an audio version of this book I received from the publisher.


1 comment:

Julie S said...

This sounds like a good book to listen to. Thanks for the giveaway.
GFC follower Julie S.
juliecookies(at)gmail.com